Spiral
by Antebellum Innocence
Summary: How beautifully it shatters. Fifty sentences of Ralph/Simon.


_author's notes._ eheh so yeah, more Ralph/Simon. It's canon, I swear! …Or at least, it would be if they were a few years older and the book hadn't been written in the 50s. Also, Jack wormed his way in here more than I expected. (How the hell did he get his own sentence?) I actually love Jack a lot, even if he _is_ a serial killer in training.

One day I'll upload non-LotF fics. That day hasn't come yet.

_disclaimer._ _Lord of the Flies_ belongs to William Golding, who, somewhere in the afterlife, has just dropped his tea on the rug in horror at my interpretation of his novel. The prompt set was taken from the 1sentence comm on Livejournal, but for some reason I haven't posted it on LJ yet. (I'm just a weirdo like that.) In summary: I don't own nuthin'.

* * *

_oh, an incurable humanist you are_

— regina spektor, "loveology"

_01. motion_

In the beginning, they really thought it would work.

_02. cool_

It's warm on the island during the day, but at night the breezes unroll a frigid blanket over the beaches, so Ralph doesn't complain when Simon shifts a bit to nestle close against him.

_03. young_

At times, it's hard to believe that so much understanding could come from a boy so small and frail.

_04. last_

Jack and his hunters are going to kill him, and Ralph accepts this with a dull sense of defeat; in some fundamental way, he knows the final vestiges of goodness on the island died with Simon.

_05. wrong_

The memory of that night around the fire still makes him sick.

_06. gentle_

Simon is handing out fruit to the littluns crowding around him, and for some reason Ralph is struck by the way the corners of his mouth turn up just so into a quiet smile.

_07. one_

From the first moment, Ralph sort of knew that Simon was not quite like everyone else.

_08. thousand_

Simon's screams still haunt his nightmares, and Ralph wants to give him a thousand kisses for every scar they carved into his skin.

_09. king_

He doesn't want to rule the island; he just wants to get them all off it.

_10. learn_

Ralph wishes he didn't know what human beings were capable of doing.

_11. blur_

Once Simon and Piggy are gone, Ralph's world smudges and jolts in and out of focus with nothing left to anchor it.

_12. wait_

Simon knows that Ralph tries to be good, because Simon listens when Ralph whispers to him during the insomnia-filled nights and bleeds regret; Simon listens and wants to kiss away every last teardroplet that clings to Ralph's eyelashes, because he _tries_, and that's all it takes to make Simon wait for him forever.

_13. change_

Things are changing on the island, and a dull, pounding dread in Ralph's chest tells him that it is not for the better.

_14. command_

Ralph never asks him to help build the shelters or watch the littluns, but Simon never needs to be asked.

_15. hold_

When Simon reaches out to brush Ralph's arm hesitantly with his fingertips, Ralph lets him.

_16. need_

Melancholy swallows Ralph whole and sets him spiraling adrift in a sea of blackness inside its stomach; he needs Simon and can't have him, and that's just what he deserves.

_17. vision_

"I'm part of you," the Lord of the Flies says to Simon, and you're the dirtiest thing there is.

_18. attention_

It's stupid and embarrassing (and of course Simon would never tell anyone, because they'd only laugh at him more than they already do), but the fact that Ralph listens to him when he talks sets a strange warmth blooming inside his ribcage.

_19. soul_

Ralph has come to realize that when Simon looks at people — really _looks_ at them in that way he does — it's like he can see what everyone else can't.

_20. picture_

He still can't erase the silhouette of the island imprinted in his brain, and it materializes out of the darkness whenever he closes his eyes.

_21. fool_

Samneric have tried to rationalize the stains away, Roger's in an institution, Jack still refuses to admit that he did anything wrong, and sometimes, Ralph asks himself whether denial is such a bad idea.

_22. mad_

Simon knows they all think he's batty, but he tries to save them anyway (_what else is there to do?_).

_23. child_

Innocence is such a fragile state of mind, and how beautifully it shatters.

_24. now_

It's at the funeral that Ralph understands — someone is delivering a eulogy; over the empty casket he sees the choir lined up in two mute rows, angels in black caps, and the image makes him feel sick — Simon was right, and the whole time it was _just them_.

_25. shadow_

"You'll get back all right," Simon told him on the rocks that day, but as Ralph's daydreams transform into nightmares once again, he is not all right.

_26. goodbye_

He descends from the mountain following the light of the fire, knowing that he's going to die, but somehow the only thing Simon regrets is not saying goodbye to Ralph.

_27. hide_

The landscape of Ralph's mind is marred with dark blemishes, sins that won't leave him alone—

_28. fortune_

— and he is never glad that he got off the island.

_29. safe_

He thinks at times that the beast must have followed him back to civilization; but then, maybe it was always there (_close, close, close_).

_30. ghost_

It's when his half-reconstructed memory gets this close to reality that Ralph most wants it to go away — the rest of his mind is still sane (scarred and broken, but sane), and it knows that this image can't be Simon, not Simon, not the boy Ralph killed.

_31. book_

Two hundred pages seep out of him effortlessly, and yet the imprint of Simon still lingers in the marrow of Ralph's bones.

_32. eye_

Simon's eyes are the brightest Ralph has ever seen, a kind of golden-greenish-hazel color shining with a light that could never be replicated with paint or pastels.

_33. never_

Ralph knows it's all his fault, so every night he stares for silent hours at the ceiling, and the wrenching force of his prayers for another chance makes his entire body ache — he'd be so much better — he'd try harder for Simon and hold him and love him and never let go and maybe this time he'd be good enough to make his angel stay with him (_I'm sorry please I love you_—).

_34. sing_

The choir screams and chants, and Simon wonders if they remember how to sing anymore.

_35. sudden_

It's not hard to deny that _it_ even happened, given that Simon was here and then just _gone_, leaving nothing behind but the faintest implication that he'd once walked over the warm sand, up the mountain, under the shade of the tall trees…

_36. stop_

It isn't their fault, it was dark and they were scared and no one could see, not murder just an accident (he _asked_ for it), but he's dead now, he's dead and oh _God_—

_37. time_

The years After the Island pass by in a haze, and suddenly Ralph is lying awake in his little flat in Exeter until dawn begins to seep through the windows, asking himself if maybe, in some alternate reality, Simon is lying there with him.

_38. wash_

Sometimes Ralph lets himself hope that the tides carried Simon's body far away, to someplace where it is quiet and peaceful and there are no shadows seeping over the shoreline (but he never goes so far as to hope he'll end up there too).

_39. torn_

A lifetime later, choir music still whittles tiny cracks into Ralph's heart.

_40. history_

No one will ever know what happened.

_41. power_

Ralph tells himself all the time that he is not like Jack — they made different choices, they have nothing in common — and yet a little voice in his brain is always there to remind him that they're exactly the same.

_42. bother_

Jack ignores the way his stomach twinges every time he looks at the boy down the row from him and wishes Simon were standing there instead; he reminds himself that at least this new one doesn't faint all the time.

_43. god_

Simon understands the solemn peace of churches and the high, pure sound of voices singing hymns, but those things are useless against this darkness that fills up the island and its inhabitants until there is no room left for God.

_44. wall_

There was always a barrier between Simon and the rest of the world, and Ralph wishes he could have broken it down.

_45. naked_

No matter what, Simon seemed to see right through to the center of things with a keen intuition that still mystifies Ralph completely.

_46. drive_

Ralph always takes the bus when it's too far to walk, because he doesn't want to be behind the wheel of a car when the memories inevitably come seeping back.

_47. harm_

There's a sick sort of irony, Ralph thinks, in the fact that Simon was the last person he ever wanted to hurt (and in that vicious, violent madness, they were the closest they will ever be).

_48. precious_

When Ralph writhes in his sleep, barely stifling screams, Simon covers him with spectral kisses and whispers soothing reassurances into his fair hair until dawn stains the sky a million shades of orange, pink, and gold.

_49. hunger_

And Ralph wants to make love to him in the sticky heat of summer — and he thinks maybe the crimson autumn leaves wouldn't look like so many splashes of blood on the horizon if Simon were here to cradle Ralph's hands in his, interlace their fingers and hold him together…

_50. believe_

Because in the end, no one will ever know what happened, and Ralph will never forget.


End file.
